Tag: CagePotato ban

You see this photo? It was posted by Zoila Frausto over the weekend, with the caption “Today’s training session @csagym was with these two!! They were awesome and I feel so fortunate!” On the right is none other than former Strikeforce featherweight star Gina Carano.

As you might expect, this photo has led to rampant speculation that “Conviction” might be returning to MMA, but for realz this time. And we are here to say that not only is Carano not returning to MMA, but that we as a community need to stop discussing or even hinting at the idea of Carano fighting in the UFC, Bellator, WSOF, Titan FC, or the long defunct YAMMA pit fighting. In fact, it is far more likely that YAMMA pit fighting will experience a renaissance than Ms. Carano’s MMA career, so for the good of us all, we need to let her go quietly into that good night.

If you’re like me, you often like to spice up the average night of fights by placing a few bets. In an era where Tony Ferguson vs. Danny Castillo is deemed worthy of a PPV co-main event, a good old fashioned wager is sometimes necessary to excite an increasingly nihilistic MMA fan such as yourself. First it starts off as a few dollars here and there against your less-informed friends, most of whom you tricked into betting on the clearly inferior fighter (“Yeah, Sinosic is pretty good. I mean, just check out his nickname!”), but next thing you know, you’re gripping the edges of your TV and praying that Stephan Bonnar makes it to the second round against Anderson Silva so your pelvis won’t be broken by Johnny Numbers and that mook Alonzo.

That got oddly autobiographical for a second there, but the point is, gambling is a serious commitment that has serious consequences. Placing bets you don’t actually plan to follow through with is not only an insult to true gamblers worldwide, but a general sign of male deficiency and cowardice. It’s all but taking a piss in the face of Kenny Rogers, is what it is.

“I’ve got a wager. Bisping is grossly overpaid, comparably to where we are. So, I bet Michael Bisping, if I don’t finish you in the first round, you can have my purse. But if I do finish you in the first round, you give me your purse. So if I don’t finish you in the first round, whether I beat you in a decision or what, you get both of our purses. But if I do finish you in the first round, we switch purses, and I get yours.

Of course, Rockhold’s wager is heavily dependent on whether or not Bisping emerges victorious from his fight with Cung Le this weekend, which the bookies seem to think he will. But that’s beside the point, which is that Rockhold should not be making such ridiculous and empty promises in the first place.

“I don’t care if my opponents are cheating or not,” Johnson said. “I train my butt off to fight the man who is put in front of me whether he’s on steroids or not. I want to play on a level playing field, but if they knew about it beforehand and didn’t stop it, at the same time, I took care of business. No big deal.”

Except it is a big deal, and saying otherwise makes MMA look like a joke.

Look, I get it. Claiming that you don’t care if your opponents are doping scores you badass points, and it can endear you to the segment of the MMA fanbase that really doesn’t care about the ongoing scourge of PEDs. (“I like Conor because he doesn’t bitch about drug-testing like these other pussies. Let ‘em take what they want!” — Darryl T. Justbleedguy)

To his credit, Dana White has rightfully shot down the notion of a Hendricks-Weidman superfight, stating on Inside MMA that ”[Hendricks is] in a very nasty division packed with talent from No. 1 to No. 13. You have a lot of housework to do before you clean out the division and talk about Chris Weidman.”

I don’t even think that I’d entertain that. Not that he’s not good or anything like that, but it just doesn’t make any sense to talk about it now. [Hendricks] hasn’t defended his belt yet, and I have more people to fight in my weight class. On top of that, I would never call out a guy who’s smaller than me. I’m a lot bigger than him, I think. I know he walks around heavy but I’d feel like I’d have a huge advantage in that fight, so I’m not calling him out.

And thank science for that. Now if only we can finish this interview without entertaining another ridiculously premature superfight question…

Even as a big fan of Lytle’s, I cannot understand how this fight is possibly being considered. Lytle retired from MMA in 2011, has not boxed professionally since 2005, and is easily the smallest draw of any of the MMA fighters Jones has been linked to over the years. Say what you want about Lytle’s granite chin, or how much Jones’ skills have deteriorated, or how Lytle was 13-1 as a boxer with wins over…

This shit needs to stop. News flash, MMA fighters & Boxers: It isn’t 1993, and there is no longer a need to prove that one fighting style is better than another. We already know that MMA is superior, we know this, so why are we as a community so insistent on leveling the scales that were tipped in our favor following Toney vs. Couture? THIS IS WHY WE CAN’T HAVE NICE THINGS, YOU GUYS.

This is a ban that we’ve been meaning to enact for quite some time. In the MMA community, long-winded rants about issues such as low pay, cruel treatment, and disrespectful articles about the men and women who sacrifice their health for our entertainment are as much a part of being an MMA fan as owning a glittery Affliction shirt. Most fans want you to know that unlike other sports, MMA is a sport whose fans truly and deeply care about the general well-being of the fighters.

And about 90% of those fans are completely full of shit, and need to finally be called on it.

The opportunity to do so has never been better than it’s been these past four days, while UFC veterans have tried to express their displeasure with the organization, only to be told to bite their tongues by the fans. First there was Chris Leben, who actually said point blank that he would have been better off driving a truck instead of fighting for the UFC for the past decade. Next, there was Nate Quarry, who exposed both how little most guys make through sponsorships and how little the UFC actually cares about their fighters. If even half of the fans who claim to respect the fighters actually did, there would be serious pressure on the UFC this week.

There isn’t a human being among us who doesn’t have some skeletons in their closet. As a species, we are often genetically predisposed to mental disease, addiction, and all kinds of abnormal behavior. When combined with the meat grinder that is everyday life in the public eye, it is only a matter of time before some of these skeletons, these abnormal tendencies, are uncovered for the world to see and later criticize from our two most prestigious ivory towers, Hindsight and Judgement.

And while there are plenty of combat sports competitors who were raised under “normal” circumstances in a “normal” household, who went on to become poster boys for the “normalness” of their organizations/sports and so on, there are just as many fighters who came from nothing, and when faced with the overwhelming eye of the public, allowed these abnormal tendencies to be placed center stage and eventually destroy them.

One such fighter is Mike Tyson, who after rising to the highest ranks of the boxing world some thirty years ago, saw his fame, fortune, and fanbase crumble beneath the weight of drug addiction and scandal. Nowadays, a wiser, gentler Tyson has emerged, unabashedly sharing the most intimate details of his past in an effort to both restore his shattered reputation and warn young fighters of the potential dangers they could face down the line.

The problem is, “Iron Mike” is being a little *too* candid as of late. Join us after the jump to see what we mean.

If following loosely MMA-related minor celebrities on Twitter is your thing, there’s a chance that you have already seen Jenna Jameson‘s latest tirade against Tito Ortiz last night. That’s right, the couple known for their crazy, attention-seeking behavior decided to air their dirty laundry on Twitter, and it was just as outrageous and pathetic as you’d expect it to be.

Of course I’m not joking about that last statement. Tito Ortiz said that Jenna Jameson’s erratic behavior distracted him before the fights he lost at the end of his career; presumably because even he has finally realized how pathetic of an excuse “I totally had a cracked skull, you guys” is.

This may be more of a precautionary measure than anything else — who knows if Jenna Jameson will actually come forward with a story about Tito Ortiz almost killing her — but it’s right about now that I think we need to revisit a defunct CagePotato Ban from the days when Ortiz was a free agent claiming to be “very close” to signing with a new promotion every other day:

(Okay, okay, okay, *you* can do whatever you want, Aleks. Just stop looking at us like that.)

Earlier today, it was announced that former PRIDE star and perpetual blue-balled can crusher, Aleksander Emelianenko, had signed a multi-fight deal with the Russian organization ProFC. Which would be fine, had Emelianenko not announced his retirement from the sport three months earlier after being shitcanned by M-1 Global. Many of you are probably wondering why we are wasting our time poking fun at a long-since relevant Emelianenko brother when we could be, I dunno, predicting who is most likely to test positive for quaaludes at UFC 159, but Aleks’ recent revelation highlights a growing problem amongst MMA fighters: understanding what the term “retirement” is supposed to mean.

Look, we get it. Everyone from Michael Jordan to Muhammad Ali have announced their retirement from their respective sports in the past, only to recant shortly thereafter. It’s understandable to a degree, especially in the fight game. A guy suffers a couple tough losses, begins to fear for his own health, and decides that it is in his best interest — as well as his family’s — to call it a career before he suffers an injury he cannot come back from. Then, after adjusting to the stale, mundane existence that constitutes the lives of most non-fighters, he begins to convince himself that he’s always had “it,” but has just been held back by issues in his training camp, at home, in their own mind etc. — issues which are now completely behind him. If only it were that simple.

The last time we saw Anderson Silva’s manager Ed Soares, he was telling Inside MMA — with a straight face! — that Michael Bisping would be a good option for Silva’s next middleweight title defense. After all, it’s Soares’s job to help his client get big fights that the fans want to see. (His response when Bas Rutten suggested that Anderson fight UFC light-heavyweight champion Jon Jones: “AhhhhhhIdunno.”)

So now that Bisping has fallen short in yet another “win this one and you get a title shot” match, Soares finally has to accept the reality that Chris Weidman is the most worthy contender to Silva’s crown, right? Right? RIGHT? Well, if you believe that, then you simply don’t know the enigma that is Ed Soares. He’s got another Plan B in mind, and it’s about as left-field as matchmaking gets. Here’s what he told CageFanatic in an interview last week, as transcribed by MMAMania:

“(Silva’s next fight) is still up in the air man, we don’t know who that is. Unfortunately Bisping lost which was a big thing but I’m not too sure. I’m not too sure who could be next…we want to fight someone who has a little bit of a name, someone that has as big of a name as possible and that’s on a winning record or a winning run right now. Right now it seems like most of the guys with names have had losses very recently. So, when I think about it, like the only thing that comes to mind and I don’t even know if that would be a possible fight is, you know, like Cung Le is coming off of three wins or something like that [Ed. note: Yeah, or something like that.] where he’s got a little bit of a name, but I mean it’s really hard in that division because it’s so evenly matched all the opponents on any given day one of those guys can beat each other, so you know, once again whoever the UFC decided we’re in…